Hello and welcome to the opening piece of a little something special.

In all of my time doing music-related stuff, I’ve met a lot of people, and made a lot of friends. Both onstage and off.

Very blessed and privileged to have first met Kel and Giz from The Empty Page (along with their friend and former bandmate Jim) at a show in Manchester in late 2017, and we’ve stayed in touch ever since, with our paths crossing at multiple shows over the years.

We met in person last week (May 2) for the first time since 2021, the occasion being a headline show for them at Shakespeares in Sheffield, and eight days before their long-awaited second album – Imploding – finally gets released into the wild.

They kindly agreed to let me interview them after the show ahead of this. It’s in two parts. This is the shorter part – designed to do my part in helping everyone get hyped and ready for the release.

The other in-depth part will be released on Friday, designed to happily coincide with the album’s release, and at some point either before or after the the band’s planned listening party.

The first set of questions were put to Kel. For those who don’t know, she does vocals and lyrics and bass things, while Giz handles the guitar duties.

LG: How did [tonight’s show] go for you?

Kel: Well, I was really nervous, because we’ve not done a gig for ages, like six months or more. And we also had a keyboard player tonight which we’ve never had before. And we’d played a load of songs that we’ve never played live before, so there was a lot at stake! But it was kind of like a safe space, playing to a slightly smaller audience than Manchester’s going to be.

I think it went really well, actually. The crowd was really lively, and people were singing along, it was nice to see people doing the actions. That means a lot, because you can feel that people are, like, reacting. And when people react, it sort of spurs you on and shows you that you’re doing a good job.

LG: So, just for the sake of being awkward, on a scale of 1 to 17, how excited are you right now, at this moment, for the release of Imploding?

Kel: Well definitely 17! This has been a really, really long time coming and we really wanted to get this out straight after the 7?‘s that we did in 2019. But then obviously we had a pandemic, so that was the first thing that ballsed it up.

And then thing after thing happened, it was many, many setbacks. And money, and there’s a lot of things involved when you’re in a DIY band that people don’t really realise. In addition to being able to afford, to even do the recording.

It’s been a really long time. It’s like when you’re waiting for Christmas, but it’s four fucking years instead of one year! And I feel like the day after that I’m going to have a massive cry, because it will be like a sort of anticlimax.

(At this point in proceedings, Harri Tape (whose band Harri Larkin is one that I REALLY should have seen play live by now), who’d made a last minute decision to come to the show, came over to talk to Kel for a few minutes. The interaction they had was cool and friendly, and I thought it worth nothing. We picked things up afterwards.)

Kel: I’m just very excited, because it’s been a really long time. I would have been excited anyway, I think that whenever a band releases an album, it’s always exciting. I wish it had been a bit earlier, but I think that in a way makes it more exciting because you’ve anticipated it for longer. I’m just excited for people to hear it now that it’s not just mine.

We also touched on plans for the listening party due to take place at some point on Friday. The actual final plan is yet to be finalised, but it will definitely involve fan interaction, and the best thing to do is to pay attention to the socials when everything is confirmed.

So there you have it, get ready.

The Empty Page. Imploding. Out Friday May 10.

Grab yourselves a copy, get listening, and come back here on the day for part two of the interview. You won’t want to miss it!